Welcome to Old Goa. Once a metropolis of hundreds of thousands of people, it is now a wooded area with half a dozen Portuguese churches and convents, and few people. Located some 9km upstream the Manjovi River from Panjim, it has an undulating terrain with a very calm, rustic air to it. Yellow buildings, well-tended lawns and gardens, bathed in the late afternoon sunlight, make one forget that this is not Europe but some backwater of India.
The pic shows the Church of St Francis of Assisi, built in the 16th century, but has now been turned into an archaeological museum. It is one of the old churches in a huge complex comprising 1 basilica (where the body of St Francis Xavier is still kept and displayed), 1 cathedral and 2 churches. I read that the Portuguese colonists were devout Catholics but seemed to have no qualms in butchering people of other faiths, for the simple reason that they believed they were on the Right Path and the infidels were fair game.
